African Americans: The Las Vegas Experience

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Vegas PBS has partnered with UNLV Libraries to bring “African Americans: The Las Vegas Experience” to the community. Through this documentary, viewers discover the momentous events that defined the African American experience in Las Vegas throughout the Civil Rights era. These events altered the city’s history and changed thousands of lives. Our story introduces individuals who are connected to these events, and to each other.

To enhance the learning experience for upper elementary, middle and high school students, a digital curriculum was developed as a companion document in partnership with Clark County School District teachers and is aligned to the Nevada Academic Content Standards.

The goal of this project was to create and distribute resources which explore African-American life and culture and its impact on the greater community by highlighting the life and times in local Las Vegas neighborhoods.

In April 2017, Vegas PBS staff, in cooperation with the Equity and Diversity Education Department, met with prospective educators from the Clark County School District. This meeting introduced the idea of developing curriculum aligned with the Nevada Academic Content Standards to highlight historical structures in Las Vegas and chronicle African Americans’ involvement in major historical events/locations. These resources are available online and on-demand for immediate classroom, homeschool, community and/or personal education. The curriculum developers were also encouraged to utilize the resources from the UNLV Digital Library

In January 2018, Vegas PBS hosted an event to celebrate the release of the Digital Educational Curriculum Guide. This event was attended by the content developers, funders and individuals highlighted in the documentary. This event also featured screening of particular segments from the documentary, a presentation from the UNLV Digital Library, a Q&A segment and a social mixer.